A-Team

Feature Focus

Highlights

We moved about:home redesign to Fx26 for now. We also moved Push to Waiting Room/Need info since it’s currently in a holding pattern until background tasks are sorted out. There was a thread about WebRTC being ready to ship. It’s not but we need it to go to beta so we can get more testing and converge so we’re ready for Fx24 GA on 09/17. Also, wonderful job in general!

Fx23

[AT RISK] Firefox Health Report <==’at risk’ is a formality, need to just get one more confirmation in writing

Round Table

User Advocacy

The Firefox 22 Sentiment Report is live.

Gearing up for 23, Beta feedback is good.

Firefox Release and Beta ratings on the Play store are the same, 4.33, with Release rising more rapidly than Beta. We are now in the interesting situation where our release product is more highly rated than Beta (mainly due to more users).

Feedback Summary

Desktop

Mobile

Sentiment Report 22 is live.

Feedback is stable for Release and Beta, ready for Firefox 23

Market Insights from the Product Marketing Strategy Team

Desktop / Platform

Microsoft

Microsoft announced an updated version of its modern.IE tools for Internet Explorer 11 Developer Preview [1] along with 3 additional offerings: 25% off Parallels Desktop 8 virtualization for Mac until August 19th, new virtual machines for testing IE11 on Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 [2], and a free screenshot service powered by BrowserStack.com that shows how a site renders across browsers and devices. Microsoft is also offering $11,000 as bug bounty to identify new vulnerabilities in IE11. Also coming in IE11 is WebGL support with CORS for security [3] and Companion Web to enable websites to be built for multiple devices [4]

Google

Chromecast received positive reviews after its launch last week [5], was sold out in several channels quickly [6], and had to stop the free Netflix promo [7] due to demand.

Google Chromebooks positioned for Enterprises with value proposition of freeing up IT professionals to “spend time on innovation, not maintenance” implying “high uptime, low service costs and scalable deployment of new Web-based applications and content”. The Play store currently sells the Acer C7 for $199, Samsung Chromebook for $249, and the high-end Pixel for $1299. [9]

Mobile

Google is expected to unveil the Moto X device at an event in New York tomorrow, the 1st of August. It is the first that was designed after the OEM’s acquisition by Google.

Google has revealed the 4.3 version of Android, that introduces improvements to multi – user support and stricter parental controls. There is support for Open GL ES 3.0 and DRM APIs. The list of updates points to a focus on the tablet form factor, that is more likely to be shared in the familiy and that has greater needs for smooth graphics support and copyright protection.

Foxconn, recently renamed to FIH Mobile, is rumored to be planning to design and sell its own line of smartphones and to be aiming for a carrier – centric distribution model. Foxconn has also applied for a 4G license in Taiwan, that would further diversify its business.

Huawei has decided to shift its main focus to Europe and pull out from the US, claiming that the North American country proved to be a “commercial disappointment”. The Chinese company has been looking to sell more network equipment in the US among concerns on the security and privacy of the solutions they offer.

A Nokia executive has come out to say that Microsoft must evolve the way it operates to make Windows Phone a success.

All three major Russian operators have stopped selling the iPhone among dissatisfaction on the tough contractual requirements that Apple has. The three carriers, Vimpelcom, MTS and MegaFon blamed “draconian contracts” and “harsh conditions … especially in the marketing department”. Russia is a market with 180 million subscribers with a particularly tough environment for high – end devices, as subsidies are not allowed.

Rumors of a cheaper version of the iPhone have emergedagain, this time with more consistency. They mention a plastic cover for the device as well as availability in different colors. Launch data would be around September, just in time for the holiday gifting season. Important because the iPhone would be approaching the space that Firefox OS is competing in. It is not expected that they would be direct competitors right off the bat, but it is something to keep watching.

Marketing, Press & Public Reaction

Consumer Value Proposition Discovery: Test positioning statements finalized and field within Brazil, India, and Indonesia will start next week [Laura]

Mixed Content Blocking: SUMO let’s sync on user outreach around this

Search Engine Optimization: Second week of Engagement. Their first batch of recommendations to increase the amount of paid search traffic to our site (and thus, downloads) is due 8/09 [Laura, Tim, WebProduction]

Paid Search FunnelCake in Indonesia and Brazil: Launched last week but currently frozen since tracking isn’t working on our end. This test will give us a firm cost per ADI in these two emerging markets via our Paid Search ad channel. [Laura]

First Run Testing: New round of tests live. Winner will be tracked against current control in two funnel cakes which will help us understand the relationship between the First Run page and ADIs. [Jen B]

Australis Redesign: Finishing up Beta Launch Plan this week. When is this landing in Nightly? [Laura]

Firefox 23 Launch: Launch next Tuesday. Main feature the new Social API Share functionality [PR]

PR:

Members of the security team at Black Hat with press coverage surrounding the Mozilla/ Blackberry announcement with Peach Fuzz testing and Minion.

bug 897872 – crash in mozilla::dom::ContentParent::RecvAddGeolocationListener – also caused by background thumbnail generation, jdm has commented but this needs to be assigned as well. – Lawrence is looking for an owner on this and the previous one

Team Stand-ups

(In <2 mins, what did your team accomplish last week, on what is your team working on this week, and on what, if anything, is your team blocked? No questions during the stand-ups. All questions should be asked during the roundtable.)

MemShrink (njn)

OrangeFactor (ryanvm)

Stability (kairo/bsmedberg)

Overall values are good on all channels, all of them are in nice shape for uplift!

The Stability Work Week is coming up in MV, Aug 18-23 (schedule). If you have any wishes/priorities for Socorro (crash-stats.mozilla.com), please make sure bugs are filed in the Socorro product and let KaiRo know about them!

Roundtable

(Comments and questions that arise during the course of the meeting or otherwise do not have a section.)

<Read only beyond this point>

Mailing List Threads

(Threads that are likely to be of interest to engineering from various mailing lists.)

Good Reads

(Links to blog posts, books, videos, etc. that you think will be of interest to others.)

29-July-2013

All-hands Status Meeting Agenda

Items in this section will be shared during the live all-hand status meeting.

Friends of the Tree

Thank you to Amitshree on SUMO for helping to add Share Article Templates with short links to over 30 articles. – Andrew (feer56)

Thank you to Karen Scarfone for doing editorial reviews on over 300 MDN pages, including 150+ of the Web API docs, which are a high priority for Firefox OS.

Thanks to all of the contributors at SuMo for making sure the KBS are updated and have the correct information for firefox OS

Upcoming Events

Monday, 29 July

MAKER PARTY: New York, USA: Global Kids Game Design Summer Camp for middle school and high school students, covering the concepts of game design including prototyping, idea development, iteration and more.

Tuesday, 30 July

It’s intern presentation season! Starting at 1pm in 10 Forward, the SF Commons, and TOR Commons. Come see Jason Shun, Jack Montgomery and Subhadeep Paul present all the glorious stuff they’ve been working on this summer!

MAKER PARTY: New York, USA: two-day digital arts #makerparty program for high school students at the DreamYard Art Center. Learn basic computer skills, photo and audio editing, and how to use social networks.

MAKER PARTY: New York, USA: three-day Fashion Design workshop for high school students to visit fashion designer Alpana Bawa and design their own fashion piece.

FxOS UX Team is presenting some work from the Future Themes track. The times are 10am PST and 5pm PST in the Gaia UX vidyo room (1.5 hours in duration). Please contact Jaime with questions.

Wednesday, 31 July

MAKER PARTY: Noord-Scharwoude, The Netherlands: Playing with Thimble and Popcorn, Webmaker at OHM2013 participants will explore concepts of interest-based learning through tinkering with Mozilla Webmaker tools.

Meet the newest WebFWD IV cohort at our Orientation Mixer at Mozilla San Francisco from 5pm – 7pm. RSVP at http://webfwdivorientation.eventbrite.com/ — and if you cannot join but want to be involved in WebFWD as a mentor / in some way, please let us know > webfwd@mozilla.com

Thursday, 01 August

Intern presentations starting at 1pm PDT in 10 Forward and the SF Commons. Come see Brandon Kase, David Zbarsky, Tim Kuehn, and Mohammed Almeshekah present all the glorious stuff they’ve been working on this summer!

For those having trouble signing into Mozilla properties with your LDAP credentials: If you have third-party cookies disabled, then white-list `login.mozilla.org` in the `Exceptions` menu. If you still need assistance, please visit #identity on IRC.

Firefox OS

Speaker Location: no audio

Planet Firefox OS will be available soon for aggregating blog posts by the Firefox OS community. Send Dietrich the URL for the feed of your Firefox OS tagged posts if you’d like to be syndicated on that planet.

bug 895819 – [fig] about:home should show the “Visited” tab when triggered from a tap on the URL bar

Stand ups

Suggested format:

What did you do last week?

What are working on this week?

Anything blocking you?

Please keep your update to under 2 minutes!

Kats

Last week

landed ZERO patches!

worked on bug 866232 (multi-APZC). Got patches up for review, currently working on making code in RenderFrameParent/TabParent/TabChild do the right thing in terms of scrolling the subframes when APZC asks it to.

bug 888086 – Making byte2hex in sync utils very slightly faster – almost but not quite entirely failed to upstream this. Will get round to doing the next iteration shortly..

Next

After completing the next iteration of the patches that are dragging on for a long time, I’ll be continuing with the preferences overhaul and performance improvement work. For performance, the most valuable next step seems to be attempting to get ProGuard working (Some progress in that regard – it builds now, but fails absolutely every unit test and crashes when you open the settings page. 😛 . It is, however, somewhat faster.)

Market Insights from the Product Marketing Strategy Team

Desktop / Platform

Google

Google introduced a little $35 device called Chromecast that allows you to watch videos from the cloud right on the TV. [1] Measuring just two inches in length, Chromecast runs a “simplified version” of Chrome OS. It plugs into any HDMI input port and links up other Google products in the home (Android and Chrome-based) such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Chromecast streams the content (i.e. YouTube, Netflix, Google Play social games, etc.) from the device source via the cloud. The smartphone operates as the remote control. For developers, there is the new Google Cast SDK. [2]

60% of all Internet end devices/users exchange traffic with Google servers during the course of an average day and 25% of North America’s consumer Web traffic through its servers. [3] It was only 6% at the last study in 2010. [4]

Google is experimenting with encryption of Google Drive consumer data [5] concerned about PR after PRISM revelations and demonstrating that consumer data can be protected from government snooping.

Apple

OS X 10.9 Mavericks coming soon compresses memory for optimum battery life and more-than-responsive graphics. [6] App Nap keeps track of what’s being computed versus what’s being used and automatically drops CPU power usage of an idle operation or function in order to conserve battery and energy. Safari bookmarked articles can be scrolled through from one article to the next, without breaking the user’s concentration to locate a similar article. Accelerated scrolling allows for fast searching through dense email inboxes, deep conversations and image-heavy webpages.

Microsoft

Microsoft plans to add Java Standard Edition to its Windows Azure cloud service [7] both as a stand-alone PaaS (platform as a service) and as component of a Windows Server IaaS (infrastructure as a service).

With Opera moving to Webkit, Microsoft’s Windows computers now account for 96% of SSL certificates with a stapled OCSP (Online Certificate Status Protocol) response, one of the methods used by browsers to check the revocation status of an SSL certificate without traffic burden on the Certificate Authority [8]

Tinderbox is EOL now. Callek set up a newer version of TBPL at [1] that doesn’t depend on tinderbox up (TBPL currently broken due to new buildmaster).

Buildmaster up and running, although stuck behind a locked door at the moment.

Builds are running and uploading, but tbpl and normal views into the process re not public.

Ewong and Callek can manually look at builds and results, as well as generate releases.

Callek is hand-approving requests for CLOSED TREE landings until he gets things visible enough to open the tree. (Callek only because these approvals preclude that Callek is watching results manually).

Linux64 is still busted for 2.20+, Callek has a fix planned (bug 890594).

Our build team needs to automate DOMI branch selection rather than having to tweak the client.py every 6 weeks. bug 763506

Nightly Tester Tools is being actively developed by xabolcs (coder) and whimboo (reviewer) to make it more compatible with comm-central in general and SeaMonkey in particular. See Issues · mozilla/nightlytt · GitHub.